conduct and views. However, if anyone at the time could voice opposition to what was happening, then it would have been the churches, and the army chaplains would have been best placed to do so, but they supported the death penalty and therefore never saw the need to do so.
† † †
Reverend Julian Bickersteth of the 56th Division was in attendance at the execution of Private Walter Yeoman of the 1/12th Royal Fusiliers on 3 July 1917. Yeoman was a soldier who had been sentenced for the offence of desertion. Bickersteth had got to know Yeoman over a number of months, and asked the senior chaplain, who had decided to attend the execution himself, if he could go instead. His diary entry, contained in a long letter he wrote on 5 July 1917, provides a very moving account of the build-up to Private Yeoman’s execution.
Bickersteth (1996) spent the twelve hours between the promulgation of the sentence and the execution itself with Yeoman in a room that he described as only ‘nine feet by ten feet’and with two guards in attendance, so there was no opportunity for any privacy. Bickersteth, in a very detailed letter to his brother, recalled saying to Yeoman, ‘I am going to stay with you and do anything I can for you. If you’d like to talk, we will, but if you’d rather not, we’ll sit quiet.’
Yeoman was initially unresponsive to Bickersteth’s ministry but eventually said that he wanted to sing hymns, which they did for three hours, finishing eventually, if somewhat ironically in the circumstances, with ‘God Save the King’. Bickersteth realised that the words to the hymns had themselves meant nothing to the condemned man, but that he perhaps made himself feel better by convincing himself that they were, in fact, a form of prayer and that therefore they had, indeed, prayed together. Bickersteth stayed with Yeoman all night while one sentry played patience and the other read a book. Earlier he had used a sentry’s knife to put jam on Private Yeoman’s bread as the condemned man was not permitted to use a knife himself.
At dawn, with preparations under way for the execution, Bickersteth was given rum for the condemned man by the APM. In fact, Yeoman refused it but enjoyed his breakfast of bread, butter, ham and tea. When Yeoman was tied securely to the stake, Bickersteth whispered in his ear, ‘Safe in the arms of Jesus’,and Yeoman replied,‘Safe in the arms of Jesus’.
Bickersteth was also in attendance at the execution of Private Henry Williams of the 1/9th Royal Fusiliers on 28 December 1917 for the offence of desertion. His diary shows that he found the experience physically and mentally trying and wrote of the ‘simple heroism of this mere lad of nineteen, who has been out here at the front since 1914’.
He spent the night with the condemned man, hearing what Bickersteth said was Williams’ first and last confession. He said that Williams:
gave me all his little treasures to give to this friend or that. He wrote a letter to his sweetheart and sent her his letter with all its photographs and trinkets, a lucky farthing which she had given him for a keepsake, his last ‘leave’ ticket, and other small things.
In his diaries (1996), he recalled the condemned man’s final moments:
As they bound him, I held his arm tight to reassure him – words are useless at such a moment – and then he turned his blindfolded face up to mine and said in a voice that wrung my heart, ‘Kiss me, Sir, kiss me,’ and with my kiss on his lips and, ‘God has you in his keeping,’ whispered in his ear, he passed on into the Great unseen. God accept him; receive him.
Bickersteth (Holmes, 2005) had sufficient awareness to realise that it was not just the condemned man who needed comforting and, following an execution, he spent time talking to those in the firing squad and giving them cigarettes, but he does not reveal any views in his letters or diary entries that show that he opposed the death penalty. It
† † †
Reverend Julian Bickersteth of the 56th Division was in attendance at the execution of Private Walter Yeoman of the 1/12th Royal Fusiliers on 3 July 1917. Yeoman was a soldier who had been sentenced for the offence of desertion. Bickersteth had got to know Yeoman over a number of months, and asked the senior chaplain, who had decided to attend the execution himself, if he could go instead. His diary entry, contained in a long letter he wrote on 5 July 1917, provides a very moving account of the build-up to Private Yeoman’s execution.
Bickersteth (1996) spent the twelve hours between the promulgation of the sentence and the execution itself with Yeoman in a room that he described as only ‘nine feet by ten feet’and with two guards in attendance, so there was no opportunity for any privacy. Bickersteth, in a very detailed letter to his brother, recalled saying to Yeoman, ‘I am going to stay with you and do anything I can for you. If you’d like to talk, we will, but if you’d rather not, we’ll sit quiet.’
Yeoman was initially unresponsive to Bickersteth’s ministry but eventually said that he wanted to sing hymns, which they did for three hours, finishing eventually, if somewhat ironically in the circumstances, with ‘God Save the King’. Bickersteth realised that the words to the hymns had themselves meant nothing to the condemned man, but that he perhaps made himself feel better by convincing himself that they were, in fact, a form of prayer and that therefore they had, indeed, prayed together. Bickersteth stayed with Yeoman all night while one sentry played patience and the other read a book. Earlier he had used a sentry’s knife to put jam on Private Yeoman’s bread as the condemned man was not permitted to use a knife himself.
At dawn, with preparations under way for the execution, Bickersteth was given rum for the condemned man by the APM. In fact, Yeoman refused it but enjoyed his breakfast of bread, butter, ham and tea. When Yeoman was tied securely to the stake, Bickersteth whispered in his ear, ‘Safe in the arms of Jesus’,and Yeoman replied,‘Safe in the arms of Jesus’.
Bickersteth was also in attendance at the execution of Private Henry Williams of the 1/9th Royal Fusiliers on 28 December 1917 for the offence of desertion. His diary shows that he found the experience physically and mentally trying and wrote of the ‘simple heroism of this mere lad of nineteen, who has been out here at the front since 1914’.
He spent the night with the condemned man, hearing what Bickersteth said was Williams’ first and last confession. He said that Williams:
gave me all his little treasures to give to this friend or that. He wrote a letter to his sweetheart and sent her his letter with all its photographs and trinkets, a lucky farthing which she had given him for a keepsake, his last ‘leave’ ticket, and other small things.
In his diaries (1996), he recalled the condemned man’s final moments:
As they bound him, I held his arm tight to reassure him – words are useless at such a moment – and then he turned his blindfolded face up to mine and said in a voice that wrung my heart, ‘Kiss me, Sir, kiss me,’ and with my kiss on his lips and, ‘God has you in his keeping,’ whispered in his ear, he passed on into the Great unseen. God accept him; receive him.
Bickersteth (Holmes, 2005) had sufficient awareness to realise that it was not just the condemned man who needed comforting and, following an execution, he spent time talking to those in the firing squad and giving them cigarettes, but he does not reveal any views in his letters or diary entries that show that he opposed the death penalty. It
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